This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
A typical pixel array is known from the subsequently published DE 10 2012 110 663 A1. In this instance, the reservoir channel has a specific width that is greater than or equal to the height of the pixel chamber. Furthermore, the length of the main reservoir channel can be greater than, or equal to, the width of the pixel chamber. With pixel chamber dimensions and the volume of the reservoir coordinated with each other in this manner, the polar and/or electrically conductive fluid always has approximately the same surface energy, regardless of whether it is in the volume of the reservoir or in the pixel chamber. Thus the energy that is required for the movement of the fluid from the volume of the reservoir into the pixel volume, and thus for the switching process, is reduced to a minimum.
However, the pixel array known from the aforementioned publication suffers from the disadvantage that, at the crossing points at which the surrounding reservoir channels connect, the pixel array demonstrates a critical behavior in that it has been shown that the color drops of the individual pixels exhibit a fluid connection to their neighboring pixels. The disadvantage is that the fluid volume assigned to a specific pixel no longer appears as a separate drop of fluid and behaves accordingly when a control voltage is applied, but instead a complex fluidic system is generated consisting of several drops of liquid joined together fluidically across the borders of the pixels. The disadvantage is that when a control voltage is applied to individual pixels, occasionally it is not possible to activate the pixels independently of each other.